DANC 362 - Dance & Ecology: Ethnographic Approaches

This research seminar examines methods and theories that both engage in and emerge from the study of dance as a form of cultural knowledge. It focuses specifically on the relationship between movement and climate justice. The course explores the intersection between dance and environmental ethnography through readings, performance, discussion, and group research with an emphasis on these fields’ shared commitment to social justice. We will read foundational texts in dance ethnograpy and explore how dance practices serve as modes for mapping and reimagining the relationship between bodies, non-human beings, land, food, and resources. Readings and case studies will address a wide range of practices including community-engaged practice, concert dance, ecosomatics, and others with an emphasis on the relationships between dance and race, class, sexuality, and gender. Through research based in ethnographic methods, students will engage in a group research project rooted in scholarly and embodied research.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Notes: Recommended: DANC 201. This course may be applied toward the dance studies requirements and as a junior seminar.
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).